Woman says miscarriage due to excessive use of force by BART police

A pregnant woman who was held facedown on the ground and handcuffed in a San Francisco train station by BART police officers — despite an agency policy against cuffing pregnant women behind their backs — said Wednesday that she suffered a miscarriage because of the officers’ actions.

Andrea Appleton, 24, was taken to the ground along with her boyfriend, 22-year-old Michael Smith, in a July 29 incident that prompted controversy after videos of the encounter spread online.

Smith was acquitted last week of misdemeanor charges of battery stemming from his struggle with officers, which happened after another passenger apparently falsely reported that Smith was armed and had threatened to rob him.

The passenger, a white man, had been harassing the couple, who are African American, as their train headed through West Oakland, telling them that they smelled, said Appleton. She said she was in her first trimester and on her way to a doctor’s appointment with Smith.

Her account was backed up by two witnesses during Smith’s racially charged trial, said San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi, who represented Smith. The couple said they got off at Embarcadero Station to avoid confrontation with the other passenger, only to be greeted by BART officers with guns drawn.

A white BART passenger called 911 to report that two African American passengers threatened to rob him and were possibly armed. After a violent confrontation on the Embarcadero platform, it was determined that neither Matthew Smith or Andrea Appleton were armed. Smith was charged, and later acquitted for allegedly assaulting the officers, but was not charge with anything related to the 911 caller.

Media: San Francisco Public Defender's Office

According to a 911 recording released Wednesday, the other passenger reported a dispute with “two African Americans,” saying that one, who he said wore a Mickey Mouse shirt and might have had a weapon, “just threatened to rob me.”

Adachi also released the officers’ body camera videos, in an effort, he said, to further a conversation about racial bias and police use of force.

“We often talk about policy and the use of force, but this is an actual case where you can see how the system failed Michael Smith and Andrea Appleton,” Adachi said. “We’re here not to only look at one criminal case but how we can improve BART policy so this does not happen again in the future.”

In a statement, BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost said an internal affairs investigation is ongoing. She said that when officers responded “the adult male was not cooperative, while the adult female was. Body cameras on the officers show the adult male bit, kicked and spat on officers while resisting arrest.”

Michael Smith, 22, was found not guilty of charges stemming from an encounter with police at the Embarcadero BART station on July 29, 2016. The still frame above from a police body camera shows an officer with his knee on the back of Smith's girlfriend, Andrea Appleton, 24, who said she suffered a miscarriage after the incident.

Michael Smith, 22, was found not guilty of charges stemming from an encounter with police at the Embarcadero BART station on July 29, 2016. The still frame above from a police body camera shows an officer with

Michael Smith, 22, was found not guilty of charges stemming from an encounter with police at the Embarcadero BART station on July 29, 2016. The still frame above from a police body camera shows an officer with his knee on the back of Smith's girlfriend, Andrea Appleton, 24, who said she suffered a miscarriage after the incident.

Michael Smith, 22, was found not guilty of charges stemming from an encounter with police at the Embarcadero BART station on July 29, 2016. The still frame above from a police body camera shows an officer with

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The body cameras also showed an officer holding Appleton facedown on the ground with his knee in her back and pulling her arms behind her as she protests that she is pregnant.

Smith, who was on the ground as well, began thrashing and screaming that Appleton was pregnant as the officers struggled to hold him down. Appleton said it wasn’t until this point that an officer asked her if she was pregnant and then helped her off the ground. In the videos, her hands remain cuffed behind her back.

BART police policy states that pregnant women should be “restrained in the least restrictive manner that is effective for officer safety and in no event shall these persons be restrained by the use of leg irons, waist chains or handcuffs behind body.”

“In this case, it was not clear or known if the female was pregnant,” Trost said. “She was not visibly showing. After the adult female said she was pregnant, body cameras show the officer treated her with respect, stood her up in a comfortable position almost immediately, moved her away from possible injury that could occur, and asked her about her well-being or if she needed medical attention, which she declined.”

BART directors Lateefah Simon and Bevan Dufty vowed Wednesday to do what they could to make sure such an encounter doesn’t happen again.

But Deputy Chief Jeffrey Jenner maintained that the officers followed protocol and were some of the best-trained in the department.

“Our job is to make sure that the citizens who ride BART are safe and the officers are safe,” Jenner said. “In this case, nobody was hurt in the sense of an action that BART PD did. We worked within our training and we worked within our policy. None of this would have happened if Mr. Smith complied.”

While Smith was acquitted of four battery charges, the San Francisco jury couldn’t reach a verdict on two additional counts of battery on a police officer, one count of resisting arrest and a lesser charge of simple battery — all misdemeanors. The district attorney could choose to refile charges, and Adachi did not allow Smith to speak to reporters Wednesday as a result.

Max Szabo, a spokesman for District Attorney George Gascón, said in a statement that the office “is currently evaluating whether we will pursue this case further.”

Adachi questioned why the passenger who made the report was not criminally charged. He said the case showed how implicit racial bias affects policing, echoing the concerns of one juror that one of the BART officers testified that he saw Smith as “angry” even though there was little evidence of that on the video.

“We look at this case as a teaching opportunity for our communities to come together and to do better,” Adachi said. “We know police officers have a difficult job, but these encounters, like the one that Mr. Smith and Ms. Appleton went through that ultimately cost them the life of their child, was unnecessary and did not need to happen this way.”

Appleton said she and Smith have been struggling since the miscarriage, which happened about two weeks after Smith’s arrest. She said her boyfriend cried every day, and she fell into a deep depression.

“It’s not right,” she said quietly. “It’s not fair to me or my boyfriend to lose our child and to have to go through this.”